The Trade War Resurgence – The Trump Trip

Donald Trumps unofficial state visit/working visit was always going to marred by speculation and outcry from the British public. However, when it comes to the freight and logistics industry, his inclusion in events and chats with heads of state is potentially a better insight into his thoughts about the current trade landscape between the UK and US.

What he thinks about Brexit and thoughts on the future relationship between both nations is, whilst being most of the time based on no previous knowledge of what’s going, still important for everyone to know. The windswept president has an incredible amount of control, and whilst I am aware that we do far more trade with Europe than we will ever do with the US, underestimating the man with the tan will be at our own peril and let me explain why.

As I have previously stated on the topic of a potential trade war and Trump’s feelings, it could detrimentally affect the USA’s economy worse than any of the countries it is trying to target. Will this stop Trump from going ahead with it? This is the same man that gave an analogy about borrowing as;

“I was making a building with blocks in our playroom. I didn’t have enough. So, I asked my younger brother Robert if I could borrow some of his. He said, ‘Okay, but you have to give them back when you’re done.’ I used all of my blocks, then all of his blocks, and when I was done I had a great building, which I then glued together. Robert never did get those blocks back.” – Esquire, January 2004.

So, yeah, he may well go through with it.

However, we already know from various publications he thinks that the Brexit deal he has seen isn’t what was promised and because of this it is going to negatively affect trade with the US. Should freight forwarders be worried? Not really.

Whilst we need to be cautious of Trump and understand he could essentially fly off the handle and muddy the waters of international trade, the logistics sector has seen some positives out of the recent Brexit updates. The FTA reacted positively to the content of today’s White Paper outlining the government’s intended future relationship between the UK and European Union after Brexit.

Hopefully, if nothing else, the current PM can resolve the tensions that currently exists between the US and UK within this visit. This may calm Drumpf down long enough that he can’t implement a trade war and we see some positive movement regarding Brexit coming.

This might be a bit optimistic, but perhaps at some stages in life, we deserve to have our cake and eat it.